


On the Dance Floor

by ninhursag



Series: Diplomatic Efforts [3]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Traumatic Stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-02
Updated: 2009-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:10:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They get over things. Kind of. Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Dance Floor

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel to [Diplomatic Efforts](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/65894.html). So, timeline wise, it's [Letters and Papers](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/66476.html), [Diplomatic Efforts](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/65894.html), and then this story.

Jim was pretty sure they didn't plan it out, not really. They all knew it was going to happen, but not how.

The only reason it hadn't before was the dreams he kept having after the mess on Hibernia. Crazy dreams. Sure, he'd always had those, and mostly whoever he was sharing a bed with could whack him with a pillow and he'd stop mumbling during them. But it wasn't normally the same person more than a few times in a row-- that shit was exhausting and unfair.

That shit was life until he got over it.

So he had the crazy dreams-- the really shitty kind-- a few nights running before Spock came to collect him. There was no better way of putting it, like he was some lost puppy dog with a collar that was microchipped with where to send him.

“You will rest better if there is someone to wake you,” Spock said, standing right inside the entrance of Jim's quarters like he was the lost puppy instead.

Jim wanted to so much it was sad, really sickeningly sad, but he knew how it would go. "I can't," he said anyway. "This is something I have to deal with myself."

Spock looked at him like he'd just suggested bungee diving into a supernova. "Assistance in such matters is--"

"You may not have a lot of personal respect for me right now, Mr. Spock." Oh that was good. Stiff and formal, starchy even. He'd have to remember that tone. "But I have experience with... this stuff. This way is best in the long run."

Spock went stiffer than usual, his mouth a straight line. "Captain, I assure you I have the utmost respect for you and for--"

"Don't," he said. "This is emotional shit okay, so don't. Not now, okay?" Then Jim ruined his moment of calm by giving Spock a hard shove outside that probably only worked because the man let him do it, and then shutting the door in Spock's face.

At least Spock didn't send Uhura. No bullshitting there-- he'd have to tell her straight and he didn't think he could take that.

Maybe she knew that, because she didn't come to bug him for anything that wasn't work. Not in those intervening weeks while he let his piles of work and a hypospray of the approved sleep meds do their work.

If you didn't have time for them, the dreams would go away. When you had better things to do then fuck around in your own head. These things had a pattern to them and it wasn't always better to talk about it.

Still, the next time he saw Spock in the corridor he leaned in close, way inside that ridiculous circle his First seemed to think was 'personal space' and said, "Stop worrying so damned loud, I don't believe in no win scenarios, remember?" Which he probably should have said before, but he'd been exhausted and nightmare befuddled and fuck Spock for springing his comfort trip on him when he was in that state anyway. Now he smiled and meant it, because he could. “I'll tell you when I'm ready, okay?”

He would be. If he didn't get what they all wanted, the motherfuckers won and that was never happening.

Spock's mouth curled up and Jim grinned at him, so he thought they were okay.

 

Another month and it did get better, nightmares going back in the box he always imagined he kept in the stem of his brain somewhere. Another month and he could sleep through the night.

Then they were all up on shore leave, so Jim bugged Uhura until she agreed to go dancing-- mostly because Spock thought the whole process was illogical and a strange way to attract potential mates and that made it hilarious. Anyway, he liked dancing, at least this kind. Sweaty slick with a heavy drum beat pounding away like the heartbeat of some alien race.

Spock came with them, even if he didn't drink and he didn't dance and the whole thing made him scratch his head, fold his arms and look like a Vulcan. A special wallflower like variety of Vulcan. Even Uhura thought that part was hilarious, Jim could totally tell just from the twitch in her mouth.

Uhura, though, Uhura could move. Not that he was surprised. Stunned maybe, hard to be anything else when you had an armful of sweaty, grinning girl grinding against you like she was winning some kind of prize in a rodeo. All Jim could do was grin back and show her he could move too. Show Spock too, because he could almost feel him watching, like hot fingertips on skin.

He wasn't expecting anyone to try to cut in. Sort of hoping Spock might, but what was two warm, willing bodies on a dance floor when you had logic to keep you chill in the night, right? Didn't matter when he had Uhura's arms wound around his neck, keeping him low and her hips pressed up close keeping it dirty.

It was a crowded floor, a stray touch barely phased him, but the sudden tap-taping on his shoulder was so deliberate it almost made him jump out of his skin. The guy was big, like about three of Jim big, with milk white skin and cloudy eyes. No race Jim recognized right off the top of the brain and that meant it was something far off and obscure.

Dude's Standard was good, though, if a little too formal and shaky around the edges like it came from a textbook. He did something that was probably supposed to be a smile and said, “I'd like to dance with you both, more privately. Consider this?”

Jim blinked and then smiled at him, because, hey, fair question. “I'm flattered, but sorry, no,” he said without waiting for Uhura to chime in. He knew she wouldn't and right now there was no way for him either.

The guy did something that Jim was still about eighty percent sure was a smile and said, “Reconsider? You could bring me much pleasure.” Nice. And that let out actual dancing as a motive.

“No,” Uhura said from Jim's side, plastered up close, which was good. Meant he could keep her behind him if the guy's facial twitches turned out to not be so friendly. Her voice was about an octave deeper than normal, and loud, but it would have to be to be heard. “We're engaged elsewhere.”

Jim stopped watching the guy's mouth and watched his body language so he missed the out of nowhere insult about human sluts but caught it five seconds before he lunged because the fucker telegraphed like crazy. He gave Uhura a quick, well aimed push to the left and ducked to the right himself so that when one massive hand groped out neither of them were in the way of it.

“No means no in Standard,” he spat and grinned, white and wild, fists at his sides. No idea if they were going to make a dent in-- whatever species this was' hide, but fuck it. “It doesn't mean grabby hands time. Read your textbook again.”

The guy made that face at him again and spat something about, “Your kind,” and “entertainment” that Jim would have missed entirely he was so busy waiting on the next strike, if he hadn't heard Uhura gasp.

He didn't do as well ducking the second blow-- too distracted tracking the crowd to make sure Uhura was clear-- but it still only glanced off his cheek. Still, ow, fuck, why did they always go for the face? He gritted through it and pushed back with a kick that connected hard but from the reaction he got didn't have enough strength behind it. Double fuck.

There was no third strike. There was just Spock, slim and precise coming up behind the guy and apparently Vulcan nerve pinches worked on that species too because he went down like he had stones tied to the back of his neck. Jim blinked. That was always kind of awesome to see, at least when it wasn't you that just went down.

Spock just nodded at him. “I suggest we seek 'fun' elsewhere, Captain, before this gentleman's friends consider taking exception.”

“That's because you're no fun,” Jim said and grinned at him.

Uhura slid back over and elbowed him in the ribs. “I think you need to take another look at the Standard textbook to figure out what fun means, Jimmy,” she hissed into his ear and he turned the grin around at her.

“Anything for you,” he said. She cuffed him on the back of his head so lightly it just felt like a puff of air. He laughed out loud.

They got all the way off the floor before the guy's buddies showed up. Two of them, both smaller than their grabby friend, but there was no mistaking the faces they were wearing for cheery smiles. He shrugged and shook the kinks out of his shoulder, figuring that Spock had Uhura covered and she was the only one here not combat certified. It was all good.

It turned out Spock had him too. They'd fought together and each other before Hibernia and they were sure to do it again, but this wasn't that. This was mind blanking violence, the kind Jim always knew was there, but never had so very prominently thrown in his face before unless planets were at stake. Not just for a bar brawl.

Spock didn't growl, the blank expression on his face didn't change. He just looked at them. “There is nothing here for your entertainment,” he said. “Certainly not my companions.” Jim half expected him to say something about walking away before he made them do it. He didn't.

His fists spoke for him, fast and sharp. The blood on the floor was as pale as the skin of the people it poured out of and Jim just found himself staring, mouth hanging open, before Uhura came over and took his hand.

“He do that often?” he whispered.

Her fingers squeezed his. “No,” she whispered back, sounding vicious. “But if I had Vulcan strength I'd have done it first. Trying times, you know?”

Jim didn't know, so he just shrugged and watched Spock's fist crash through the last one's jaw, sending him sprawling to the sticky-slick floor. “So, you think he'd punch you or me if one of us said we should clear out of here before someone calls the cops?”

“I don't think he'd punch you or me unless someone's life depended on it,” Uhura said and she sounded like she was smiling. “Try it and see.” Jim laughed and did it, because why the hell not?

Spock didn't punch him. His eyes gleamed bright and dark and he ran one green-bruised knuckle against Jim's equally bruised cheekbone, but the gesture was gentle, almost shockingly so.

“Indeed. That is entirely logical,” he said. He let his hand linger there until Jim pulled back, because really, this was not the kind of thing he wanted to end up cooling his heels in some obscure jail cell for, if only because Bones would never let any of them hear the end of it.

So then they ran for it.

And just like that, he felt ready to take whatever little platonic threesome shit they'd been playing at up a notch. If it had been up to him, they'd have adjourned to the nearest alley and he'd have sucked the blood off Spock's knuckles just to see if it tasted of copper, but no one was listening to his ideas.

Instead they got a room in a tall, rickety looking hotel that smelled of baking bread. At least Uhura got the room and let them follow her inside, because between Jim's bruising face and Spock's blood spattered clothes and hands, they didn't look like prime hotel guest candidates.

The room inside had the biggest bed Jim had seen outside of a palace or a diplomatic residence (and inside a lot of them). He thought about taking a minute to wash his face, let Spock wash his, something. Instead he grabbed the nearest warm body-- Uhura, as it turned out, and kissed her, fast and hungry. It had been so long since he'd really kissed her, and anyway, he'd been really fucked up the last time. This time he had to take his time and remember what this was like, figure her out.

Warm and sweet under the acrid taste of alien liquor and she knew exactly where to put her tongue, how to yield and how to take. Her hands were steady on his shoulders, just there, keeping him there with her and that was good, that was so good.

He almost jumped out of his skin when Spock slipped in behind him, heart going into overdrive. Not because that wasn't where he wanted him, just because... because. But then Spock's hands were on the back of his neck, warmer than Uhura's, warmer than anyone else who'd ever touched Jim there and a thousand times more careful.

These were the hands that had half choked him to death that one time and that had held him when he wished he was dead. That had pummeled a couple of guys into the ground less than an hour ago, because they... he didn't even know, insulted him. Or Uhura. Or both, whatever. They were so still now, so careful on his skin.

“Spock,” he said, and he could feel the curve of Uhura's smile against his cheek, the soft brush of her lashes.

Spock's fingers curled against the nape of his neck, slow, like he was exploring unclaimed territory and it made Jim shiver. “Jim,” Spock said, softly, voice as careful as his hands. His first name on Spock's lips, that was something.

Jim couldn't stop shivering even if he wasn't cold, and then Uhura cupped her hands around his face and pulled him over into another kiss while Spock's hands slid down and under his shirt until they touched bare skin.

“You don't have to,” he whispered, and his voice came out shaken and strange. Hoarse.“I'm the original boy that likes it rough.”

Uhura smiled at him and tapped her fingertips against his cheek while Spock curled his palms against his hips before reaching around for the zipper of his trousers.

“Why don't you let us worry about what we have to do right here, mm?” she said. “Maybe we want to have you gentle.” He didn't know why that was funny, but it was, it was great, astonishing. He kissed her this time, but it wasn't rough at all, wasn't anything but this, just breathing her in.

He let his hands fall, fingers tangling with Spock's until they managed to get his pants open and then off. He couldn't have said how he ended up being the first one naked, but it was hard to care when they kept touching him, all the time, everywhere. Light and loose, teasing hands, all that strength banked and under control. They wouldn't leave marks. They could take him and have him and no one would ever know where they'd touched but the three of them.

They wouldn't leave marks on the flesh, but he'd know and just... just this and fuck, he didn't know why that was so hot, why it made him moan and thrust up into one of Spock's waiting hands.

Uhura slipped away to turn the lights off and Spock half led and half teased him over to the bed. They fucked under the covers, like virgin newlyweds might if they came in threes and Jim had no idea how he'd gotten to play the bride.

When Spock leaned over and whispered, “And does that please you?” and Uhura's laughter, delighted and bright, rang in his ears, he didn't much think he'd mind. It pleased him very much.

In the morning, under the light of this planet's orange-red sun, he rested his head on the pillow and stroked the soft strands of Uhura's hair where it fell over his palm. Spock was behind him and pressed close, alien warm and still asleep.

Uhura's eyes were open, just slits, as she yawned herself into wakefulness. At some point she reached out, tangling her hand with his. “Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey,” he mumbled back and lifted up her hand so he could brush his mouth over the fingertips. She was so beautiful like this, relaxed and soft everywhere. Calm. It made him feel calm too, like he could rest.

“Spock said you wouldn't let him... let us... help you. Before, when you were having nightmares.”

Jim sighed, eyes crinkling around the edges. “Yeah,” he admitted softly. She didn't let go of his hand and he didn't try to pull away. “I'm sorry. I didn't want to get you or him tangled up with that.”

“With what?” she murmured, and he could see the wrinkle in her brow. See that she didn't understand, not really.

“I don't know how to explain it to you,” he admitted softly. She reached out to touch his face and he sighed, pressing his cheek against her palm. “If you were always there when I had nightmares, maybe, I'd start to like, see you. And then have nightmares.”

“Like bad associations?” she still sounded confused.

He shrugged and forced a smile. “The girl I used to be so in love with when I was a kid forwards me articles, did you know that? The peer reviewed publications of Dr. Marcus with little notes in the margins, that's how we talk now. She doesn't call. I don't see her face.

“The last time we were in the same room she tried to jump off a roof and I wasn't sober for a month afterwards. We can't, Nyota.” Like Spock, he knew how to use a first name. He also knew how to read up on what was wrong inside his own head, the literature that gave him a roadmap to what he'd done stupid and wrong. How not to do it again. “I see her and I see... everything else. I can't not.”

She frowned. There was pain in her face, sorrow. He wanted to erase it. “There are psychological techniques that--”

He shook his head, just once, and then leaned forward and kissed her, quieting the rest of what she might have said. “I never want it like that with you or Spock,” he whispered into her mouth. Like saying his name out loud was enough, the warm lump at Jim's back started to stir. Those clever, amazing hands sliding down his spine, slow and careful.

Jim forgot what he'd been going to say. He doubted it was important anyway.


End file.
